An efficient self-organizing node deployment algorithm for mobile sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) constitute the platform for a broad range of applications, such as those related to national security, surveillance, military, health care, and environmental monitoring. Maximising coverage using resourceconstrained nodes is usually a goal to provide the expected qualityof service for these applications. This problem has been studied extensively in recent years, especially when the connectivity and energy efficiency are of high significance. In this paper, we propose a new distributed move-assisted algorithm, called SODA, to efficiently provide the maximum coverage for WSNs with self-organising mobile nodes. SODA is based on a deployment algorithm recently reported in the literature which is inspired by the equilibrium of molecules. However, while SODA’s transition from chaos to order is faster, the final coverage provided by SODA is also insensitive to the initial deployment of the nodes and no specific level of coverage during the initial deployment isrequired. This is achieved by detecting the local network density and adjusting the partial force applied at each step in each neighbourhood accordingly. Our extensive simulation study shows the advantages of SODA including lower power consumption, as well as faster and more effective coverage